Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
ABSTRACT: The empirical scaled span approach for assessing the stability of surface crown pillars for mined
openings has been in use for over a decade. In this time it has been widely used not only for dimensioning new
crown pillars but also for assessing the stability of often abandoned crowns. This paper re-evaluates and
updates the original database compiled in 1989/1990 and re-examines the basic mechanisms considered of
relevance to the development of the Scaled Span concept. Improvements to current methodology for properly
dimensioning a crown pillar over a shallow mine or tunnel opening are presented, based on updated knowledge
of the behaviour of some of the case records.
Some observations and inferences on long term stability are provided, together with discussion of possible
correlations that may exist with respect to the age of the pillars that have remained stable, as compared with
those that failed. On the basis of observations on the time from original excavation to failure, some
suggestions are given on application of the scaled span concept for assessing pillar longevity.
1 INTRODUCTION
The Scaled Span concept was developed over a
decade ago, as a procedure for empirically
dimensioning the geometry of crown pillars over
near-surface mined openings, based on precedent
experience, (Carter, 1989, 1992). At the time of its
initial development, no acceptable method existed
for assessing the stability of the many hundreds of
existing mined openings, many of which were found
to be sited in locations where collapse posed
significant risks to the General Public, (Figure 1).
C S = S
t (1 + S R )(1 0.4cos( ))
0.5
Table 1: Comparative Significance of Crown Pillar Failure (from Carter & Miller, 1995)
Class
Prob. of Minimum
ESR
Failure Factor of
(%)
Safety Excavtion
Support
Ratio
Years
Public Access
Regulatory
Position on
Closure
Operating
Surveillance
Required
50-100
<1
>5
Effectively zero
<0.5
Forbidden
Totally
unacceptable
Ineffective
20-50
1.0
1.0
Forcibly
prevented
Not
acceptable
Continuous
sophisticated
monitoring
10-20
1.2
1.6
2-5
Actively
prevented
High level of
concern
Continuous
monitoring with
instruments
5-10
1.5
1.4
5-10
Prevented
Moderate
level of
concern
Continuous simple
monitoring
1.5-5
1.8
1.3
15-20
Discouraged
Low to
moderate level
of concern
Conscious
superficial
monitoring
0.5-1.5
50-100
Allowed
Of limited
concern
Incidental
superficial
monitoring
<0.5
>>2
0.8
>100
Free
Of no concern
No monitoring
required
4 LONGEVITY CONSIDERATIONS
Despite the usefulness of such probabilistic methods
for assessing current pillar stability, the approach
falls far short when it comes to addressing
longevity, a key question now frequently requiring
discussion in closure documents. Further, although
it has long been known that changes in stability state
occur as an excavated opening deteriorates by
ravelling of the stope walls or crown, thereby
leading to wider spans or thinner crown conditions,
little quantitative is known about rates of ravelling.
Although limited use was made at the time of the
1990 compilation of the original database of
information pertaining to the time to failure, some
basic data was collected on longevity of the crowns.
Bieniawski
0.22
8.17
299.03
10943.8
400525
0.90
14.00
200.00
8000.00
?
Is = 0.0156e
0.42
11.47
310.91
8429.6
228551
0.165RMR
1/2 hr
12 hr
2 wks
1 year
25 yrs
Threshold
Span (m)
Bieniawski &
Equation
2.4
6.6
15.0
31.0
?
2.7
6.3
14.7
34.3
79.8
Carter, T.G., Mackasey, W.O. and Steed, C.M. (1995). Coordinated approach to Remediation of Abandoned Mine
Hazards. Proc. Sudbury 95 Conf. on Mining and the
Environment, Vol. 1 pp. 349-358.
Carter, T.G. and Miller, R.I. (1996). Some Observations on
the Time Dependency of Collapse of Surface Crown Pillars.
Proc. 2nd North American Rock Mechanics Symposium
Montreal, Vol. 1, pp.285-294.
Grimstad, E. and Barton, N. (1993) Updating the Q-System
for NMT. Proc. Int. Symp on Sprayed Concrete, fagernes,
Norway, 21pp
Franklin, J.A. and Palassi M. (1993). Maximum Span and
Stand-Time of Underground Excavations. In Proc. Int.
Congr. Innovative Mine Design for the 21st Century,
Kingston, Ontario, Bawden W.F. and Archibald J.F. eds.
(Rotterdam: Balkema), pp. 443-453.
Goel S.C. and Page, C.H. (1982). An Empirical Method for
Predicting the Probability of Chimney Cave Occurrence over
a Mining Area. Int. F. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. & Geomech.
Abst., 19, pp. 325-37.
Golder Associates (1990). Report 881-1739 to Canmet on
"Crown Pillar Stability Back-Analysis".
Contract
No.#23440-8-9074/01-SQ, Canada Centre for Mineral and
Energy Technology, pp. 90.
Hoek, E. (1989). A Limit Equilibrium Analysis of Surface
Crown Pillar stability. Proc. Int. Conf. on Surface Crown
Pillars for Active and Abandoned Metal Mines, Timmins, pp.
3-13.
Just, G.D. and Free, G.D. (1971). The Gravity Flow of
Material in the Sublevel Caving Mining System. Proc. of the
First Australian-New Zealand Conference on Geomechanics,
Melbourne, p. 88-97.
Laubscher, D.H. and Taylor, H.W. (1976). The Importance
of Geomechanics Classification of Jointed Rock Masses in
Mining Operations. Proceedings of the Symposium on
Exploration for Rock Engineering, Johannesburg, pp.119128.
Lauffer, H. (1958).
Gebirgsklassiziziering fur den
Stollendau. Geologie und Bauwesen, Vol. 24, No. 1 pp. 4651.
Lorig, L.J., Board, M.P, Potyondy, D.O and Coetzee, M.J.,
(1995) Numerical Modelling of Caving using Continuum and
Micro-Mechanical
Models, Proc. 3rd Can. Conf. On
Computer Applications in the Mineral Industry, pp 416-425.
Mackasey, W.O., (1989) Concepts on Dealing with
Abandoned Mine Hazards
Szwedzicki, T. (1999). Sinkhole Formation Over Hard Rock
Mining Areas and its Risk Implications. Trans. Instn. Min.
Metall (Section A), Vol. 108, pp.A27-A36.